About Me

Since the 1990s I have been very involved with fighting the military "don't ask don't tell" policy for gays in the military, and with First Amendment issues. Best contact is 571-334-6107 (legitimate calls; messages can be left; if not picked up retry; I don't answer when driving) Three other url's: doaskdotell.com, billboushka.com johnwboushka.com Links to my URLs are provided for legitimate content and user navigation purposes only.
My legal name is "John William Boushka" or "John W. Boushka"; my parents gave me the nickname of "Bill" based on my middle name, and this is how I am generally greeted. This is also the name for my book authorship. On the Web, you can find me as both "Bill Boushka" and "John W. Boushka"; this has been the case since the late 1990s. Sometimes I can be located as "John Boushka" without the "W." That's the identity my parents dealt me in 1943!

Thursday, February 28, 2013

The saga of third-party Kennedy Center ticket purchase, as a
consequence of website difficulties, continued today. To its credit, Cheap Tickets called me this
afternoon and told me that the broker didn’t have time to send an e-ticket, and
gave me an order number and broker name for pickup at will-call (for a Sibelius
(pun) NSO concert). But when I got
there, the broker name was wrong; the order number matched another broker in
California.

But 45 minutes later, just in time, I had a comp ticket
anyway for the concert. So being a
Kennedy Center member helped after all.
(And I got to see the bird collection on the third tier).

Some questions occur, however. I noticed that most of the seats in the upper
tier were empty, as if they had been bought by third party brokers to be sold
at huge profits, perhaps when word of the website failure spread.

I sat next to a gentleman., however, who had an NSO
subscription.

That brought back memory of the period in the fall of 2003,
when I worked for Arts Marketing (a Canadian company) trying to sell
subscriptions to the NSO. (The Minnesota
Orchestra had started using Arts Marketing in the spring of 2003, while I was
calling for the Guaranty Fund, before I came back to DC, my first interim job
after my 2001 career-ending IT layoff).

We were told to “overcome objections” and to tell potential
subscribers that the website was “hard to use”.
That isn’t true – except yesterday, when there was a sudden surge of
demand (because of “Book of Mormon). It
doesn’t seem that these telemarketing or telefunding jobs are of much use for
organizations that have good online presence and mechanics (including plans to
handle surges in volume).

On the other hand, Arts Marketing tended to employ retired
people, some of whom were good at it and could earn an extra $40000 a year or
so besides their pension and Social Security, part time. They did it by calling the same subscribers
every year. And it employed some
professional people who had been laid off from more conventional jobs (like
me). Too much efficiency (as from the
Web), you don’t need to employ as many people really needing work (and raising
families). It seems as though the Amish
know this better than anybody else.

Wednesday, February 27, 2013

Today, the Kennedy Center showed us how not to provide
customer service.

The site went down completely for most users after tickets
for “The Book of Mormon” went on sale.
It was impossible to get to any areas of the site at all.

Various html error codes displayed, either 103 or 503, or sometimes no data at all, on any computer or mobile device.

In the evening, it finally connected to the site, but then
suddenly Oracle prompted me to load a new version of Java. I did so.
I restarted the machine, and had to get past one hang of Windows
Explorer.

After all of this, the site would load, but the ticket
facility could not service me, as it could only process a few requests at a
time.

It's rather poor of "KenCen" to expect visitors wanting to purchase for other events to know what was going to happen today. They did have an advisory sheet, but you had to know to read it.

A couple weeks ago, KenCen moved a Millennium Stage event into the concert hall (Afgahn Naitonal Orchestra) and visitors who did not know to arrive early missed it. There seems to be a problem with advising customers. Maybe you just do need to follow them on Twitter and Facebook -- admit I hadn't done that yet.

An "Apprentice" for Donald Trump would have anticipated this problem and had a separate server or domain set up specifically for this event. Otherwise, "you're fired."

Kennedy Center does not run itself particularly well "as a business". But, again, it's non-profit with heavy government involvement. So that's what you get.

Ironically, I had just seen "Book of Mormon" in NYC last Sunday (by staying an extra night in NYC after seeing a friend's concert) and was looking only at National Symphony concerts.

Why doesn't the KC set up a completely separate domain name, or else A-record alias, to process heavy volume?

When I worked for ING-ReliaStar (through 2001), some people
telecommuting one day a week/ One
particular former Vantage consultant worked from home four days a week. In my own experience, people tended to be
very successful in resolving technical problems (as with production) from home.
Collaboration and “creativity” could be another matter. How do Facebook and Google stand on this with
their employees?

When I lived and worked in Minneapolis for ING, I lived just
1000 feet away on the Skyway, in the Churchill apartments.

People were solving production problems on Nightcall from
home in the early 1990s with take home dialup terminals, or with Procomm.

Picture (mine, today): I think that looks like the former Newsweek building. Te decline of print media might be hurting the Big Apple particularly.

Update: Feb. 27

Curiously, today in Arlington VA I saw a sign at the National Science Foundation building offering employees a symposium in telecommuting! Didn't have the little camera with me.

Wednesday, February 20, 2013

I want to report on my progress with my third DADT (non-fcition) book, so here is a draft of the "conclusion" of Chapter 4, titled, "Just Mainframes, and then a Huckster".

My life – both professional and personal – had been in a
sump in the early nineties, partly over anxiety over a partially flubbed
elevation at work, resulting in long-term babysitting, which I hate (as a
pun). The issue of the military ban woke
me up, as a writer, and that gave me a second wind as a “computer professional”
for a while, particularly after I moved to Minneapolis in 1997. That started one of the best periods in my
life. Even three weeks off because of a
hip fracture (after a convenience store fall) in January 1998 didn’t stop me.

My life plan would be seriously challenged by my mother’s
illness (next chapter), even before the layoff.
After the layoff, it gradually became apparent that my self-promoted
publicity would indeed create irreconcilable conflicts with any sort of job
that required submission to the marketing purposes dictated by others. The constant unsolicited approaches that I got
from people trying to recruit me to sell their “stuff” seemed to be an attempt
to challenge me, and dare me to keep going, to remain outspoken without “paying
my dues” and earning (by supporting other people) “the privilege of being
listened to”.

A more obvious effect of the layoff could have been the
descent into grunt work, and the need to prove that I could deal with the
regimentation of “the proles”, as we called “them” back in my days in the
Army. My own father had always preached
the moral value of “manual labor”, partly because he understood that the world
can be a fragile place, and it’s easy to get into life-threatening trouble if
you don’t learn how to fix things with your own hands. It seems curious in retrospect, that my
father didn’t make me do some things like set furnace pilot lights, change oil,
and even fire our one 22-caliber rifle.
(I did have to change a tire with a jack after all.) In 2003, I actually did work three shifts at
the Metrodome as a “fast food worker” in fund raising for All God’s Children
Metropolitan Community Church in Minneapolis (shortly before I returned to
Virginia).

Earlier, there had been attention to the “manual labor” aspect
of I.T. – being able to code assembler, being able to solve dumps without abend
aids right from registers, being able to take full responsibility for
nightcall. In the final analysis, this
did not count for much. One of the guys
laid off in 2001 had actually been on nightcall the day before. They just spread it out among the people that
remained, without paying more, because they could get away with it.

Oh, some will say, isn’t this an argument for unionism? Maybe.
Unions can be as exclusive and exclusionary as employers. They certainly demand the loyalty that would
be alien to my nature.

In my “conventional career” based on answering “what is my
profession”, I did not advance in a conventional way. I was formally “promoted”
only once. I, instead, broke away and
promoted myself as a self-publisher. I
did find that when you “go it alone”, you depend on how well others do their
jobs. The level of customer service from
telecommunications and utility companies becomes particularly critical. A small slip by a contractor can knock you
off line and affect how you look, your public reputation. You feel like you’re watching your back. In the long run, you have to get results
through others, even when you go solo.

When I worked for a large stable company for a long sequence
of years (surviving or even benefitting from mergers) the workplace seemed to become “the
universe”. After all, the workplace is
“the hand that feeds you”. Matters that
seemed small in retrospect always became big deals at the time, with lots of
social and political nuance, most of it internalized. I would often become preoccupied with the
degree of perfection required in outputs that could go to users, particularly
after elevations and then facing the prospect of running my work past millions of customer items. It was definitely on me, and a preoccupation
with perfectionism in the present could cut down on learning new things – very
important for future career challenges. But with time, the sense of crisis
always passed. Once I retired, I was
confronted with my “apperception” of how the rest of the world really lives,
and how I depend on people to do things that I can’t do, would find demeaning
or distasteful, or physically challenging or too regimented. There was certain a “moral” point to all
this, harking back to the moralizing of my own father, about “learning to
work”. But what really ambushed me was
the personal aspect of “real world” careers – particularly salesmanship. My flamboyant father (a glassware
manufacturer’s representative for decades) used to brag he could sell anything
to anyone, a point that offended me, but I do get his drift. There seemed to be no ultimate truth, no
“Theroy of Everything”, that one could prove; there was only faith, and the
“relative” truth that lived in social and familial hierarchies.

Saturday, February 16, 2013

As I left a Valentine’s party at the Town DC and walked out
into sloppy wet snowflakes, I picked up a Metro Weekly. I was surprised to find
a detailed article on mobile technology on p. 41 of the February 14, 2013
issue.

The article of interest is “App-athy”, with illustrations by
Christopher Cunetto. The article does
not appear online yet but should shortly in Marr’s archive, link here(as part of Metro's "Technocrat" column).

The article concerns the way the app Jawbone (link), designed first for
Apple OS-s, which means you need an iPhone, iPad, or iPod to use it right now.
The application lives as firmware inside a wristwatch that monitors physical
activity while exercising (jogging, cycling, etc.; don’t know if it is
waterproof enough for Michael Phelps).

The version for the Motorola Droid (which I have) is not
available yet, ETA unknown (rather like a Netflix saved CD). The problem with Android, Marr says, is that
it is overloaded (like a method) with complexities and flexibilities and make
it hard for app developers to accommodate.
Marr says that Windows Phone is good and simpler, but doesn’t have
enough market share to warrant app developers’ time. Microsoft would have to accommodate the
situation and subsidize development.

I am locked in to Droid until toward the end of 2013 by
Verizon. But I would rather have iPhone
because it might be possible, in the long run, to make sure that Google’s
2-step verification signon procedure is foolproof with a Google-preferred
device.

Marr notes that Facebook has been slow to fix
Android-related interface problems, partly because they are hard to fix, and
partly because most employees know the iPhone better. The company had to force employees to use the
Droid to get the problem fixed.

And NBC Today has been reporting on cell phone security apps that photograph users who anytime they unlock their phones.

It would be important to know if Droid and Windows lag behind in apps for home control (cameras, home security monitoring, thermostat setting). A heating contractor told me that remote thermostats are sold at the "Apple Store" -- but could that mean that only iPhone has it? I wonder. Does someone know?

The esoteric nature of many of today’s firmware-related apps
gives one an idea of where a big part of the job market has gone – whatever the
parameters of “the recovery”.

The video above about Jawbone is sponsored by “Host Gator
Web Hosting”.

Thursday, February 14, 2013

Jim Tankersley gives a perspective on what’s happening with
the job market in the Washington Post on Thursday, February 14, 2013, “Economic
growth is no longer enough: For middle class today, recovery isn’t translating
into higher-paying jobs”, link here.

In the late 1980s, jobs started to be lost to hostile
takeovers. There was a major recession
after the savings and loan collapse followed by the drawdown after the Persian
Gulf War, and even then there was advise to professionals to do “grunt work”.

With mergers, some associates would benefit tremendously,
whereas others would be laid off. If
left Chilton in 1988 before TRW took it over, and the entire operation was
eventually laid off, but some people went to TRW and benefitted. Now the company is resurrected in the Dallas
area as Experian. When NWNL bought
USLICO in 1995 and became ReliaStar, I benefited from a transfer to Minneapolis
in 1997. Other people left behind in
Arlington started getting laid off in 2000.
But when ING bought ReliaStar in 2000, and had a layoff at the end of
2001, it was “my turn” to sacrifice.
Some others benefitted by working with the acquiring company, often
being willing to travel to Hartford.

But gradually, recessions and mergers have tended to weed
weaker people out of the market (as the article notes). These tend to be people who are not flexible
enough to learn new skills quickly. It’s become a “Darwinian” world. And the IT market in the mainframe area seems
to have fragmented into rotating short-term contracts, not very hospitable to
families. Yet, some government
operations (like the IRS) will soon be hurting because the skillset in the old
mainframe area has been allowed to deteriorate so much.

Throw into all of this the effect of social media, and the haphazard way employers look at associates' profiles. But with manufacturing and even "coding" so outsourced, no wonder we've become a nation of hucksters. And nobody wants telemarketing calls or excessive sales pitches by email either.

Note: the takeovers of Chilton, USLICO and ReliaStar were "friendly". However, Chilton (as part of Borg-Warner) was nearly taken over "with hostility" by Irwin Jacobs and sold to Equifax first.

Wednesday, February 13, 2013

The North Carolina legislature has moved to reduce the
maximum monthly unemployment benefit and to reduce the maximum number of weeks
to 20, which means that North Carolina workers, after layoff, can never get
extended federal benefits (as approved with the Fiscal Cliff bill on Jan. 1).

The state unemployment fund is in deep debt, and is taking
the measure to relieve the debt.

Curiously, some lawmakers complain that workers won’t take
(menial) jobs when there is a benefit of over $500 a week maximum.

Michael A. Feltcher has the story in the "Economy and Business" section of The Washington Post Wednesday, February 13, 2013, here.

North Carolina has been considered a great state for tech,
with the “Research Triangle” around Raleigh-Durham (I recall Cary as the home of SAS). But bank consolidations around Charlotte have
reduced many jobs, particularly after the financial crisis of 2008. “Nations Bank” and Wachovia no longer exist
as such.

I believe that Census has moved its regional office from Charlotte to Philadelphia now.

Monday, February 11, 2013

The Washington Post Metro section Monday February 11, 2013
has a story (Brigid Schulte) about the 20th anniversary of the FMLA,
the Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993.
The print title is “Falling through cracks of leave act: 40% of
workforce goes uncovered”, link (website url) here.

The story gives anecdotes of workers with small employers,
including non-profits, being demoted or fired after returning from medical
leave, pregnancy, or even leave for spouses or even parents.

The twelve weeks leave (the law generally applies if there are
more than 50 employees) is unpaid, to prevent abuse. But that then means real sacrifice if it is
for another family member and not the self.

Nexsen Pruet explains FMLA basics in this video from 2009.

As I noted on a posting here Jan. 5, 2013, I faced the
possibility of using it in 1999 for my mother.
I did not, and we hired a live-in home health aide for eight weeks while
she recovered from coronary bypass surgery.
But of course, that only works when the “patient” (often a senior) has
the money to pay for it, and it tends to exploit the labor of the less
fortunate. (How does a “live-in” have a
life, when I do?). In an individualistic society, sacrifice is exactly
that.

Representative Jim Moran (D-VA, 8th District)
sent out a tweet honoring the FMLA.

Some European countries require that employers offer paid
family leave (which would tend to punish the childless, perhaps,
indirectly).

Wednesday, February 06, 2013

The Health Insurance Exchanges to be set up by 2014 will
require the hiring of a lot of “navigators”, counselors who will help consumers
find appropriate coverage. All this is
covered in a Washington Post story Feb. 4 by N. C. Alzenman, link here.

It’s unclear how much they will be paid, of whether they
would include “volunteers”.

Furthermore, it appears that they would have to be bonded
and would face serious constraints on giving “legal advice” and on stomping on
the turf of insurance agents.

Yet, the supposed jobs are being described in a cloak of
do-goodism.

How many people will go to work in such scenarios? Will the jobs appeal to retirees? To recent college graduates? How bureaucratic will the jobs become?

Tuesday, February 05, 2013

The Internal Revenue Service has reduced hiring time for
outside employees from 150 days to 90 days last year, and admits that it has
serious needs in Information Technology to reprocess many changes in laws from
Congress and future changes that are likely from budget negotiations. The IRS held its breath a few weeks ago that
Congress would fix the levels on the Alternative Minimum Tax and did not actually
change them to the “unexpired” lower values.

The IRS also uses outside contractors for some mainframe
programming work. Some of the IRS
systems are in IBM mainframe assembly language, and the required level of skill
in that area (which has become unpopular in the past dozen years or so) is difficult
to find, in a market where even older professionals did not retain skills that
they perceive (probably incorrectly) as becoming obsolete. I had a telephone
conversation about IRS needs back around Christmas 2005. Jobs seem to go to a very small group of
professionals who stayed in the mix. When the IRS doesn’t find the skills it
needs in that area, then it is very difficult to find someone who can actually
do the job now. So for so people, the
IRS is a good place to look for jobs now.

The IRS may be more likely to have technical or software
issues processing returns correctly this season than ever before.

My own information, from the past, was that most positions
were around Merrifield VA (now undergoing extensive real estate renovation) and
Martinsburg, WVa (near Harpers Ferry, about 70 miles from DC).

The original story by Josh Hicks appears in the Washington
Post Tuesday February 5, 2012 (on “The Federal Page”), but had been published
online Feb. 1, and is difficult to find with the Post’s normal search, link.

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